Dr. Jeffrey Solomon: A chiropractor on the go

By Todd Stumpf • PHOTOS BY LANCE JEFFREY

Things were going just fine for Dr. Jeffrey Solomon back in the late 1980s. His practice, Falls Chiropractic Health Center in Miami, was growing. He was seeing between 125 and 140 patients a week. He was making a good living and enjoying his budding career.

At the time, Solomon was an on-site chiropractor on the set of Miami Vice, a popular television action show. He recalls marveling at the way everything involved in the production of the program seemed to come out of a truck.

Initially, he thought little more than that. But a chance encounter with a somewhat sarcastic patient triggered a change in his life.

“I asked the patient how he was doing,” Solomon says, recounting the moment. “He said, ‘Not real good.’ It turns out that he had been in pain for a couple of weeks but hadn’t some in to see me. I told him I couldn’t help if he didn’t come in. He complained, ‘You need to come to me. I’m a busy guy and you need to come to me.’ I laughed and told him that was impossible.”

But the patient’s comment struck a nerve. “As I walked down the hall to my office, I looked into my exam room and the proverbial light bulb went off. I thought: ‘I wonder if you could put that [the treatment room] into a truck, like they do with the TV show, and bring it to people.’”

A ROLLING TREATMENT ROOM

It turned out that you could. In fact, creating a rolling treatment room did not seem difficult at all, a fact that quickly turned Solomon’s brainstorm into an obsession. If it was that easy, surely someone was doing it. At least Solomon was sure that was the case.

“While I went about my day taking care of my patients, the idea kept coming back to me,” he recalls. “I decided I needed to follow up and see who had done it. I did my research and discovered that nobody ever had.”

Solomon was 27 at the time. He had a good private practice and was making adequate money. But he could practically feel the pangs of regret that would come in the future if he didn’t at least give the traveling chiropractor idea a shot. So he spent the next five years leafing through truck and RV Magazines, checking equipment specs to see what would fit inside an RV, figuring out how to power everything inside, such as X-ray machines.

“The truck needed to have everything you would have in a traditional office,” Solomon says.

What emerged was a 30-foot, state-of-the-art, custom-designed recreational vehicle — Mobile Chiropractic, Solomon’s new practice.

He got things rolling, literally in late1992, when his first RV was delivered. In early 1993, he was officially seeing patients on the move. He created a new marketing package and had patients set up and waiting for him. Within 15 weeks he was seeing 100 patients per week and the mobile unit was profitable.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I considered 100 patient visits a week at that time as a landmark where I would be very secure in paying my start-up service, my day-to-day expenses and still come home with money,” Solomon says. “There was a brief frustration period.”

That coincided with the introduction of a managed-care program in Florida. But Solomon says those who were not in managed care, along with those who were willing to pay cash, welcomed his new 240-square-foot “facility” with open arms.

It wasn’t until four years later that he went mobile full time. The move to total mobility followed Solomon’s stint as a chiropractor at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, where he parked his office for three weeks and got a clear idea of the way he could, in fact, practice on the move all the time.

He knew his associate at the time was interested in buying into his practice. Solomon took it a step further and offered the associate the whole thing. With help from an evaluation firm, the two reached an amicable deal and Solomon drove off into the sunset.

Today he drives all over the Miami area. He has different routes, repeating two routes twice a week, then seeing patients in his own neighborhood on the off day. A typical day might have him, for instance, outside an airport maintenance facility, where he is able to see anyone working there. He doesn’t take appointments, but he has appointed times when he’s accessible to patients.

When a patient sees Solomon, it isn’t any different from seeing a DC in a stationary office. He offers consultations, chiropractic and physical exams, X-rays (when necessary), adjustments, and therapeutic activities such as active stretching, myofascial release, and flexion distraction.

He offers exercise plans, nutritional advice, and lifestyle counseling and even provides supportive healthcare products and supplies — all from his office on wheels.

“I have people expecting me within a range of time. Any number of people may come in and see me while I’m there,” Solomon explains. “I basically take care of them by their needs. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues book [appointments] by what their own needs are. We give [our patient groups] a call to tell them we’ve arrived and how long we will be there. If they have time and need to be adjusted, we’re there.”

COMPACT OFFICE

His RV has all the trimmings of a standard office: an X-ray machine,an automatic processor, and two adjusting tables.It has display cabinets, a bathroom, which doubles as a darkroom, and a

reception/waiting area. It’s a package that initially cost him a little more than $100,000 to purchase and outfit. A similar model today, Solomon estimates, would run about $140,000 to $145,000.

Smaller, less appointed models could be built and stocked, Solomon says, for about half that.

The X-ray machine, for example, is a luxury that he decided to have. But the top-shelf model, he says, is well worth the price, especially when compared with a traditional office.

“It’s a much better deal,” Solomon says of the mobile office. “That’s one of the real benefits. You lease it to purchase over a five- to seven-year period and it lasts about 20 years, depending on how you take care of it. Unless you own your own office building, it’s awesome.

“If you own your own property, that’s another story. You have the cost of oil changes and gas and some mechanical repairs, but that’s the equivalent to the amount you’d pay for gas, electric, and maintenance at an office. The fact you are not paying a lease forever makes it even better.”

Solomon spends most of his time riding around to various corporate and industrial work sites. He chooses locations that have business environments with good insurance reimbursement rates.

TAKING CARE TO PATIENTS

He has made it the mission for the rest of his career to work on the concept of bringing service back to patients, “like it was done a hundred years ago. In a way it’s like house calls, but in volume. The one thing I don’t do is go house-to-house. That’s not practical. This is a lot more fun, plus it’s a lot more profitable.

So profitable, and so much in demand, in fact, that he plans to hire an associate to operate an additional mobile office in the Miami-Date County market area. He also has expanded the concept of his operation to include two franchised mobile clinics. Not too bad for a brainchild spawned on the set a 1980s TV series. That tie-in, incidentally, was also the start of a wall of fame of sorts that decorates the interior of the RV/office. Among his patients early on were Miami Vice star Don Johnson.

Sharon Stone, Sylvester Stallone, Will Smith, and Kelly Clarkson have all visited Solomon’s truck and have given him personalized photos for his wall.

He has also treated professional and Olympic athletes.

“For chiropractors who are sports-oriented,” Solomon says, “there’s nothing like being able to pull your whole office up to the venue.”

Todd Stumpf is a freelance writer. He can be reached at tstumpf22@yahoo.com.